INTRODUCTION

In 1882, Ruy Barbosa, then a deputy and member of the Commission of Public Instruction, presented to the Chamber of Deputies of the Empire of Brazil two opinions, one on primary education and the other on secondary and higher education. With regard to the first opinion, which was about primary education in the Municipality of Corte, Ruy Barbosa divided it into 18 parts. The seventh part was dedicated to the "School Methods and Program", considered by Barbosa one of the most important pillars of the whole school reform (^{BARBOSA, 1883}). The seventh part, in turn, was divided into 12 paragraphs, of which the fourth - "Object lessons. Intuitive method" - and the fifth - "Mother tongue. Grammar" - are the ones of interest here.

To deal with "Mother tongue", Barbosa cites approximately 32 authors and 40 titles in footnotes. In this part, there are many more references to what might be called "academic essays" or "scientific reports" than to work and observation reports. With this, Barbosa mobilizes a larger number of scholars who have gained, over time, the profile of "experts" on the subject.

As to the nationality of the authors, by birth or adoption, Barbosa refers to: 16 French; three Swiss, and an identical number of Belgians and Americans, as well as two Englishmen and one German³. George Payn Quackenbos is one of the three Americans in the notes to the fifth paragraph; his name and the title of his manual - Illustrated lessons in our language; or how to speak and write correctly. Designed to teach English grammar, without technicalities - appear in only two notes. Author and work could remain unnoticed were it not for the strategic place Ruy Barbosa gives them when dealing with the teaching of the mother tongue. Quackenbos' book is used to rebut Grammatica analytica e explicativa da língua portuguesa (1872), by José Ortiz and Candido Pardal, whose names, it should be noted, Barbosa does not even mention.

Ruy Barbosa points to the Grammatica Analytica..., by Ortiz and Pardal, as the "corpus delicti" of the errors they would be committing in the teaching of the mother tongue through grammar and indicates Quackenbos' Illustrated lessons in our language..., as the antidote.

The purpose of this article, in discussing the two books, is to add new elements to the studies already advanced in Brazil on the intuitive method, especially those of ^{Valdemarin (2020}; ²⁰⁰¹; ^2000a; ^2000b; ¹⁹⁹⁸) who, in many cases, refers to the opinions of Ruy Barbosa. The originality of this study falls especially on G. P. Quackenbos and his illustrated lessons, since the Grammatica analytica... or its authors have already been the object of research incorporated here to the extent appropriate (^{BORGES, 2014}; ²⁰⁰⁸; ^{LEMOS, 2011}; ²⁰⁰⁶; ^{MARTINEZ, 1998}; ^{TEIXEIRA, 2016}; ²⁰⁰⁸; ^{SCHUELER, 2009}).

CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING ORTIZ & PARDAL'S GRAMMATICA ANALYTICA...: RUY BARBOSA'S CRITICISM

Ruy Barbosa sees in foreign examples demonstrations of the "immense progress" that is being made in the teaching of native languages. In all of them, the traditional teaching of grammar to children was being criticized and, in some, the suppression of its teaching in primary schools was being recommended, reserving it for secondary schools. The abstract grammatical notions that were still being taught in Brazil would be out of the children's reach. Children should be taught only concrete grammatical notions and practical examples.

While this orientation was spreading among Europeans and North Americans, in Brazil, Barbosa is forced to confess "the routine is safe, nurtured, applauded, benefited by the education authorities" (^{BARBOSA, 1883}, p. 172). The body of such an offense is Grammatyca analytica... which "with all its cleats and deletions of official approval" would be running "through the hands of children, from school to school" (^{BARBOSA, 1883}, p. 172).

In a note, Barbosa reports having consulted the 4th edition of this grammar, and despite the great fame that José Ortiz and Candido Matheus de Faria Pardal enjoyed beyond the circles closest to educational matters, their names are left out of the Opinion.

Studies give account of the success that Ortiz and Pardal would have obtained in their respective teaching careers, held not only contemporaneously, but also very close geographically, although nothing foreshadowed this closeness at the beginning of their adult lives.

José Ortiz was born in the Province of Rio Grande do Sul - at an unknown date - and died in Rio de Janeiro in 1880. Taught first letters in the village of Itapemirim, Espírito Santo, where he founded and directed a high school; Professor of French, History and Geography at the Liceu⁴ de Vitória; Professor of the Escola Normal⁵ de Vitória; later Professor of the Liceu Niterói in Rio de Janeiro; free teacher of languages and philosophy and author of textbooks⁶ (^{BLAKE, 1899}; ^{PIROLA, 2013}).

Candido Matheus de Faria Pardal was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1818 and died there in 1888. He taught in various types of schools; he accounted for different subjects in primary, secondary, and professional education. ^{Lemos (2006}) highlights the drawing teaching at the Externato do Colégio Imperial de Pedro II⁷ since 1864, besides having taught primary school at Freguezia de Santa Rita. Once retired from these functions, he directed the schools of the municipality and wrote books for use in schools. There is also a record of intense associative activity between the 1870s and 1880s, including the signature of the Manifesto of the Court Teachers of 1871⁸; participation in the Pedagogical Conferences⁹; participation in higher bodies of public education, among which, member of the Board of Directors of the General Inspectorate of Primary and Secondary Education of the Court, in addition to many other activities on different social and political fronts (^{BLAKE, 1899}; ^{LEMOS, 2006}; ^{BORGES, 2014}).

The partnership of Ortiz and Pardal in Grammática analytica... would have been preceded by the work published in 1862, Novo systema de estudar a grammatica portugueza por meio da memoria, inteligência e analyse, ajudar-se mutuamente (New system to study Portuguese grammar by means of memory, intelligence and analysis, helping each other), released by Typography of Pedro Antonio D'Azeredo, Vitória - but there is controversy about this dual authorship¹⁰.

Grammatyca analytica... was published for the first time in 1871, in Rio de Janeiro, by Typ. Universal Laemmert. In 1872, in an ordinary session on August 3, the Board of Directors of the Inspectorate General of Primary and Secondary Education of the Court was concerned with the "critical judgment" of the examiners of Grammatyca analytica..., in order to point out "the slight defects that it generally recognized to exist in the compendium, in order to be expurgated from them, when printed for the use of students in public primary schools." (^{BRASIL, 1872}, p. 62).

After notifying the authors of the necessity of these adjustments and having them accepted to adapt the referred grammar, in session of September 24th 1872, the Directive Council of the General Inspectorate of Primary and Secondary Education of the Court approved the grammar of Ortiz and Pardal, with the determination that it would substitute the grammar of Cyrillo Dilermando da Silveira (^{BRASIL, 1872}). In view of this process, Grammática analytica... had its 2nd revised edition published in 1873, by Livraria Nicolau Alves, being immediately supplied in this re-edition to the elementary school of the Court through a contract signed between the General Inspectorate of Primary and Secondary Education of the Court and the authors. After the 2nd edition, the 3rd edition was published in 1876, the 5th edition in 1884, and the 6th edition in 1888, all by Nicolau Alves/Alves e Cia Editores, all with reformulations and extensions¹¹.

Printed in hardcover, small format, with pages varying between 100 and 150, according to the edition, Grammática analytica... starts from the definition that grammar is the "art of speaking and writing correctly", subdividing the study of this "art" into four parts: "etymology"; "syntax"; "spelling"; and "prosody".

The first part, the study of "etymology", focuses on the knowledge and classification of words, defined as "the expression of an idea, represented to the ear by one or more sounds, and to the eye by one or more letters, forming syllables" (^{ORTIZ; PARDAL, 1884}, p. 3)¹².

In classifying words as to their formation - primitive or derived by affixes -, it is clarified that they can be divided as to their nature into ten "species" or "parts of the sentence," namely, "the noun or name, the article, the adjective, the pronoun, the verb, the participle, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection." (^{ORTIZ; PARDAL, 1884}, p. 4). The first six types are classified as variable, because "they change their ending," and the final four types as invariable, "because they never change their ending."

Through this explanation, the definitions, characteristics, variations (only for variables), properties and forms of classification of each of the "word types" are presented, and the general rules for understanding them are clarified. At the end of this explanation, which occupies most of the compendium (about three quarters of the text), 28 exercises of "grammatical analysis" and "logical analysis" are presented, which indicate a progressive process of complexity regarding the possibilities of sentence construction according to the types of verbs - "nouns", "virtuous", "impersonal" or "unipersonal" -.

The "grammatical analysis" consists in the identification of each type of word used in a given sentence, therefore, it corresponds to the classification of them in relation to their grammatical value. The " logical analysis " consists in the definition of the words according to the function they exercise within the sentence, focusing on the identification of subject, verb, attributes and complements.

Still with regard to the "grammatical and logical analysis" exercises, it is worth noting that the sentences used have a moral and religious connotation, in line with the model of elementary education established since 1854. Sentences are analyzed, such as: "God is just"; "To glory in a fault is to aggravate it"; "Cain killed Abel or the Abel"; "Eat with moderation"; "I repent of sin"; "Peter is the most modest of men". Thus, associated with grammar teaching, there is a kind of reinforcement of teachings aimed at Christian moral and religious formation, with direct reference to biblical content.

After the presentation of the "etymology" exercises, the second part of Ortiz and Pardal's compendium begins, this one destined to the "syntax".

The "syntax" is defined as "the part of Grammatica that teaches how to compose the sentence and the grammatical period," this period being understood as "the meeting of words that will form one or more sentences having a perfect sense and ending with a period." (^{ORTIZ; PARDAL, 1884}, p. 107). In the study of "syntax" the simple period and compound period clauses are explored, in order to proceed to the definition and characterization of each of them. In view of this, the concepts of "subject", "complement", "attribute", "apposition", and "vocative" are presented. Elements of "natural" and "figurative" agreement and regency are also exposed, as well as vices of language. After the concepts of "syntax", some models of " syntax and logic analysis " are presented.

The third part, concerning "orthography", develops the part of the grammar that is intended to teach how to write words, making correct use of letters, punctuation marks and accents. In view of this, the spelling rules, rules for the use of capital letters, rules for separating syllables, figures of speech, the use of punctuation and accents are presented.

In the fourth and last part, "prosody" is addressed, defined as "the part of grammar that teaches how to pronounce words well." For this, aspects concerning the sound value of syllables are explored, in order to teach the counting and identification of the value they have in poetic texts.

With this content, Grammática analytica ... is finished, without presenting specific exercises for the last two parts. There are only a few examples in reference to the concepts explored about "orthography" and "prosody". In the consulted edition, and the same should be true of the others, no illustration appears.

Therefore, there is nothing to indicate that Grammatica analytica... presented any significant innovation in comparison to the grammars that had been adopted in the past. It was far from incorporating central precepts that then characterized, in Brazil, the first steps towards the Pestalozzian method, the intuitive one, and its analytical expression in the scope of elementary knowledge - reading, writing and counting¹³. Perhaps not even in relation to the rejected grammar of Cyrillo Dilermando da Silveira, replaced probably because he was already deceased at the time and had no representative to defend it¹⁴. On the other hand, Ortiz and Pardal enjoyed political and social prestige. In Pardal's case, it was more than prestige, since he held positions of power that allowed him to decide which textbooks schools should use in the Municipality of Corte.

Having been adopted even before its approval by the Board of Directors of the General Inspectorate of Primary and Secondary Education of the Court, the Grammatica analytica received an early evaluation of its adjustment and acceptability and for the elementary primary education of the Court during the Pedagogical Conferences held in 1873 (^{BRASIL, 1873}). However, in the report on "Teaching Compendiums and Materials", by Antonio Felix Martins, General Inspector of Primary and Secondary Instruction of the Municipality of the Court, prepared at the end of 1872 and presented to the Councilor General Inspector of Primary and Secondary Instruction in 1874, another evaluation is recorded.

When explaining the importance of verifying the compliance with the legislation in force about the use of books and compendiums at Court, it is stated in this report that Ortiz and Pardal's compendium, as also highlighted by ^{Teixeira (2008}), was the target of complaints from teachers, because it was understood to be too extensive:

The compendium adopted is that of teachers Dr. Ortiz and Pardal. Part of the primary teaching staff is against the book, considering that it is too extensive and that it should be reserved for the 7th and 8th grades, preferring Cyrillo's and Polycarpo's grammars for the lower ones. (^{MARTINS, 1874}, p. 49).

In this context, regarding specifically the teaching of grammar, the commission affirmed in its report that this had been "the most repulsive study" when it should have been one of the most "lively and pleasant" (^{MARTINS, 1874}, p. 43). Thus, although the teaching of grammar was understood as one of the most competitive for the development of intelligence, the commission evaluated that the school did it purely by memorizing definitions and rules, without explanations that would break with the "monotony of sterile recitation". The commission adds in its report that: "To study like this is not learning, to accumulate precepts without application is to overload the memory without any benefit. This study needs a complete reform, especially in girls' schools where, so to speak, it does not exist". (^{MARTINS, 1874}, p. 43).

In view of these aspects, the commission evaluated that much of the inadequacy of grammar teaching was related to the different norms related to this subject, since the decree of 1854 established teaching limited to the "essential notions"; the internal school regiment fixed the "grammatical analysis" and the subject distribution table indicated the "logical and grammatical analysis" (^{MARTINS, 1874}, p. 43). In view of this "confusion", the commission positioned itself in favor of the provisions of the 1854 decree, understanding that

The elementary school does not have for mission to teach and to devastate grammatical difficulties; its object is limited to make the boys speak, with due correction, which is obtained, not by means of analyses and complicated rules, but by practical means, and simple definitions and rules, which the boys, being well directed, will arrive to formulate, by themselves. (^{MARTINS, 1874}, p. 44).

In conclusion, the commission presented recommendations on how the teaching of grammar should be conducted in all schools of the Court, emphasizing that its basis should be reading, as a way to focus the study of the "parts of speech":

Reading can serve as a basis for the study of grammar: After reading a passage and explaining it properly, the teacher will call the attention of the students to the various parts of speech contained in this passage, and will show the function of each one; then he will make the application that his experience and knowledge indicate, and will end the lesson by making the students expound, one by one, the subject they have just read, taking the opportunity to correct any defects in diction, grammar, and construction that they may have committed. (^{MARTINS, 1874}, p. 44).

Newspapers also welcomed criticism to Grammatica analytica... by Ortiz and Pardal. “A Província”/The Province - organ of the Liberal Party, from Recife, reserved space between July and August 1874, in four editions, for Albino de Meira's criticism of the grammar. According to ^{Borges (2014})¹⁵, Albino de Meira was a teacher of "national language" in a prestigious public school in the capital of Pernambuco. His criticism begins with the principle by which Ortiz and Pardal conduct their lessons:

They say, ladies and gentleman, that grammar is the art of speaking and writing correctly. This definition is bad, because it overly restricts the defined object, reducing grammar to its practice, to a gross materiality, stripping it of its philosophical and scientific side [...] (MEIRA apud ^{BORGES, 2014}, p. 263).

^{Borges (2014}) completes on the same page:

This first sentence was enough to yield subject matter for Albino de Meira's entire first article, which occupied three columns of the periodical. The professor also made severe criticisms to the method used to approach the topics and the definitions presented, commenting each disagreement thoroughly, as well as making indirect condemnations to the inspectorate that approved the grammar. Albino mainly presents issues concerning the way of conceptualizing that he considers imprecise, superficial or incomplete (^{BORGES, 2014}, p. 263).

Despite the criticism, Grammatica analytica... remained in use at least until the end of the 1880s, when its 6th revised and expanded edition was published with the seal: " Adopted by the General Inspectorate of Public Instruction, with the approval of the imperial government, for the compendium of primary schools " of the Court Municipality¹⁶.

Thus, Ruy Barbosa's criticisms of the grammar in question were preceded by these and many others scattered in official documents and in the widely circulated press. In Barbosa's analysis of the need to reform the language teaching at the Court in face of the "immense progress" resulting from the intuitive orientation at the end of the 19th century, this author emphasizes that a situation of shame was identified in the schools of Rio de Janeiro, "applauded", "benefited" and "honored" by the authorities.

The body of this "offense", according to him, was found in the use of Grammatica analytica ..., since this book, while committing the "old sin" of associating grammar to the art of speaking and writing well, did so by means of a characteristic trait of the "old pedagogy", namely: the disconnection between reality and the correct forms of saying and writing.

Barbosa explains that Ortiz and Pardal's grammar had as a funding, a teaching based on the definition of rules and concepts in a synthesis form, in order to "deviate" the study of the language from the facts that constituted its plot. For him, this book disregarded the "absolute origin" of all grammar, turning its study into an "extrinsic", "formalistic" and "conventional" activity of already established texts.

Barbosa asserts that, at the time, modern philology was against this tendency, refraining from the "erroneous" concerns and the "useless" way of understanding grammar as an "art" of writing and speaking well. For this reason, when analyzing the way Grammatica analytica... systematized its contents, Barbosa characterizes it as a "ticket" of "enigmatic locutions" that "baffles" and "stifles" the childish spirit. For him, this grammar produced a "radical tyranny" against children's intelligence, resulting in "mental apathy", "imbecility" and "cretinism" for the new generations.

In addition to these aspects, Ruy Barbosa adds that Ortiz and Pardal's grammar was full of "pitiful symptoms" of an "unfortunate" "metaphysical" concern, centered in "monotonous" and "useless" classifications, indicating grammatical operations without any usefulness or sense for a child. With that, the then deputy concludes that Grammatica analytica... consisted of a:

[...] useless chaff that is worked by exhausting the intelligence of the boy, subjected by this inept pedagogy to a symptomatic regime of mental fatigue, through an inextricable haze of rules and enumerations, which the spirit will reject of itself with aversion, only age will free it from the violence of the school. (^{BARBOSA, 1883}, p. 175).

AN EXAMPLE OF THE INTUITIVE METHOD: ILLUSTRATED LESSONS IN OUR LANGUAGE..., BY QUACKENBOS

Once the mistakes of Ortiz and Pardal's grammar had been exposed, Quackenbos' "precious little book", Illustrated lessons in our language; or how to speak and write correctly. Designed to teach English grammar, without technicalities, is presented by Ruy Barbosa as an eloquent example of the use of intuition as the essential basis of all teaching.

It is by exercising the language, that he [the student] will prepare himself, to deduce the theory of its laws. Of the application of this process, we have before us an example in the illustrated lessons of language, by Quackembos [sic], designed to teach grammar by the objective method [note for the Illustrated lessons...]. This precious American booklet avoids "the formidable legion of inflections and conjugations [note to quote at length from B. Berger, L'enseignement ...], divisions and subdivisions and exceptions [note to an equally long quotation from M. Bréal, Mélanges de... ] which d'earlier was deemed indispensable, and constantly seeks from the beginning to familiarize the disciple with the use of language as an everyday reality of first importance, not as a compound of theoretical abstractions; replaces the arid routine of verbal regency, with its endless circle of definitions and rules, by a series of oral and written exercises, inductively teaching the art of expressing thought, and substantially develops the whole course by simple lessons of things" [note to Illustrated lessons. ., p. 3] (^{BARBOSA, 1883}, p. 176).

The edition cited by ^{Barbosa (1883}) of Illustrated lessons ... is from 1880, but its release was in 1876. The "little book" obtained eight editions by 1888 by D. Appleton & Company, which edited practically all the books by G. P. Quackenbos¹⁵.

George Payn Quackenbos was born in 1826 in New York City and died in 1881 in the same city. He received his Bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1843 and his Master's degree from Columbia College in 1864. He taught at the Collegiate School in New York City. He founded a school. He earned a Doctor of Laws degree from Wesleyan University in 1863. Until 1868, he maintained teaching activities. Throughout his professional life he contributed to several academic journals and for two years (1848-1850) edited the Literary American magazine. He gained notoriety as an author of books of diverse nature, mainly didactic, including grammar, history, rhetoric, natural philosophy and arithmetic series¹⁶ (^{THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION, 1900}; ^{WELSCH, 1994}).

By the time Illustrated lessons... was released, Quackenbos had already published 16 other teaching titles, as well as a novelette - as he called the booklet of "crime and mystery" (1846) - a book of short stories (1855), and a poem (1872). His name was also already circulating outside the United States, as evidenced by the publication in 1874, by an Athens publisher, of History of the United States of America. He subsequently published three more didactic books, in addition to the reissues/ reprints¹⁹ that followed for years and the new foreign language publications, such as History of the United States, published about 1888 by a Tokyo publisher²⁰.

Illustrated lessons..., the author's last textbook on the subject, this time for children, was preceded by five didactics on composition, rhetoric and grammar, and a dictionary of English and French²¹ pronunciation, intended for high school and college students. Over time, he also published, in English, six didactics on history - in addition to the translations already mentioned; one on natural history - with international circulation - and six on arithmetic.

Except for the illustrations - central to the intuitive method as disseminated in the United States - one does not find in Illustrated lessons... innovative features that were not already present in his five previous books on composition, grammar, and rhetoric. They were the first two - First lessons in composition, in which the principles of the art are developed in connection with the principles of grammar; embracing full directions on the subject of punctuation; with copious exercises (1851) and Advanced course of composition and rhetoric: a series of practical lessons on the origin, history, and peculiarities of the English language. ...Adapted to self-instruction, and the use of schools and colleges (1854/1864) - which produced the greatest impact reflected immediately in the wide adoption in schools and colleges and, consequently, in subsequent reissues. Their mediate repercussions can be gauged by the many scholarly works devoted to analyzing them to the present day²². Like the first two books mentioned above, the 1876 book was reissued many times - according to ^{Schultz (1999}), there were 40 -, but, unlike them, illustrated lessons... has so far received little attention from scholars.

In the Preface, from 1876, the author presents Illustrated lessons... as "the result of an earnest effort to teach young children" (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 3). Young children, but not beginners. The audience to which this booklet is dedicated is children who, in principle, already knew how to read and write. In other words, it is not a "primer" or a "speller". It consists of 90 lessons, averaging two pages each. Despite the title of the book, only 12 lessons are illustrated. The lessons are always accompanied by exercises. At the end of the booklet is a complete alphabetical index of the subjects treated, which, according to the author, would dispense with a summary.

The author's main objective is to teach the student "in a natural and common-sense way", in an intelligent and practical way, to speak and write correctly according to the principles of English grammar but eliminating its "technicalities". For this reason, it leaves aside the endless "inflections and conjugations, divisions and subdivisions, observations and exceptions”, seeking from “the very outset to familiarize the learner with the use of language as an every-day reality of prime importance - not as a mere theoretical abstraction”. With this purpose in mind, assures the author still in the Preface, to replace “the dry routine of verbal parsing, with its endless round of definitions and rules, a variety of oral and written exercises teaching the art of expression inductively" (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p.3).

Therein lies a key to understanding Quackenbos' proposal: the use of induction as the logical principle of the teaching method. On the other hand, he proposes to "do away with rote-learning and make the language-lesson a vehicle for valuable mental discipline" (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p.3).

As for his adherence to inductive teaching, Quackenbos soon gives a name to the method he adopts: Object-lessons. Therefore, for him, in his method induction and intuition are combined. The booklet offers the "correct models"; the teacher writes them on the blackboard; the students think about them and discuss them. The teacher takes care not to divert attention from the essentials by asking the students questions, thus leading them to reach their own conclusions. The exercises are repeated so as to ensure memorization. "Pictorial illustrations from new designs made expressly for the work aid in this object-treatment of the subject, and will prove [...], not less useful than attractive" (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 3).

The emphasis on illustrations as much as on the exercises, extensive and varied, prove, according to the author, his interest in turning a study, of "proverbial dryness", into an activity within the student's reach and at the same time pleasant (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 3). The exercises perform yet another function: they are the ones that mark the continuity of the stages: the next lesson can only be started when the previous text has been perfectly understood; no new lesson should be started until the previous one has been mastered.

Quackenbos also offers a parameter for the position of his Illustrated lessons... among the didactics that began, at the time, to be sold in profusion in the United States: it is not part of a series; it is a book "complete in itself"; everything needed for learning grammar is there, considering who it is intended for and a teacher who is intelligent in its handling. Everything one needs for learning the English language, "the leading principles of good style, oral criticism, business correspondence with a variety of mercantile forms, and especially the means of securing fluency of expression, receive careful attention." (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 4. Italics in the original). But even if it is intended to be used in a series,

these Lessons will be found a fitting introduction, as they cover a much wider field than is usually embraced in the Elementary Grammars, and, dealing with no controverted points, are adapted to any system the teacher may prefer. It is believed that they will teach more grammar than these Elementary text-books, for which they are offered as a substitute, and do it more thoroughly and easily. (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 4)

Before the first lesson, Quackenbos introduces a preliminary, Lessons in Our Language, in which he establishes connections between thought, word, sentence, the means of expressing them - written and oral - and, finally, exercises. This preliminary has no illustration. Although long, the quotation is necessary:

We all know how to talk. We talk in order to express some Thought that is in our minds.

We express thoughts with Words. Each word means something. By putting words together, we can make them express any thought we wish.

When a child begins to speak, it uses single words. But it soon learns to put two or three words together - then more - and thus it forms Sentences.

We can form sentences without speaking a word. When Captain John Smith was taken prisoner by the Indians, soon after Virginia was settled, he told them that, if they would agree to release him, they should find in a day or two, in a certain place in the woods, a number of articles which he named. On going there at the appointed time, they found just what he had promised; and taking him for a great magician, they let him go.

But he was no magician. He did no more than any of us could do. He had managed to send a letter to his friends, telling them what he had promised, and they distributed things around. Thinking that he had not spoken to his friends, he had expressed his thoughts to them. Thoughts, therefore, can be expressed both by writing and by speaking.

When we speak or write our thoughts, we must use words correctly. How to do this, we will learn. (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 5. Italics in the original)

Following are the questions to guide the exercises:

Questions.—Why do people talk ? When did you learn to talk ? How did you learn to talk ? What do you use, to express your thoughts ? Besides talking, what other way is there of expressing thoughts ?

Of what three letters is the written word far made up V Give the sound of each of these letters. Of what three sounds is the spoken word far made up ? Of what is a written word made up ? Of what is a spoken word made up? What do letters represent? What do words express? What are made up of words ? Do you ever hear sentences used, and when ? Do you ever read sentences, and when ? What are we going to (^{QUACKENBOS, 1876}, p. 6. Italics in the original)

On the following pages, lesson 1 with illustration(takes up pages 6 and 7). Like the others, this one has no title.

Source: ^{Quackenbos, 1876}, p. 6.

Single Figure: Illustration of Lesson I from the book Illustrated lessons... by G. P. ^{Quackenbos, 1876}. 

Induction and mental discipline. Quackenbos adopts the method that leads students to formulate a concept, a category, a general idea from particular cases. His starting point is experience, "contact" with things and "relationship" with people. He embraces the understanding that experience does not "deliver" to the intellect fragments of reality, but reality already reasonably "codified" by intuition. We will come back to this topic later on.

As for mental discipline, he apparently does not refer in a strict sense to the "theory of mental discipline" whose roots would be in Christian Wolff's deductive rationalism, which affirmed the mind as a set of hierarchical faculties. Although he does not explain his understanding in detail, everything indicates that for him "mental discipline" referred specifically to persistent exercises that could improve abilities such as speech, calculation, and particularly memory and attention. This, after all, was how, in everyday school life, most teachers translated this theory into classroom use²³.

Quackenbos was neither rationalist nor deductive in a strict sense. The studies about him as the author of textbooks on rhetoric, composition and grammar - later summarized in a single expression: English - place him at the convergence of other philosophical strands. Quackenbos would have brought together in himself both elements of the so-called "new rhetoric" and elements of Pestalozzian pedagogy - expressed particularly through his adherence to the lessons of things. Quackenbos would have accomplished this synthesis in a peculiar, one might say innovative way, and would thus have opened the way for other didactics of these and other subjects based on the same methodology.

The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition confirms Quackenbos' affiliation to the New Rhetoric²⁴, particularly to George Campbell.

As an educator and author of educational works focusing on composition, rhetoric, and grammar, Quackenbos would have stood out for his manifest ability in the mid-nineteenth century to offer more practical applications of highly theoretical but widely disseminated New Rhetoric ideas [...] While many of his contemporaries strove to create American versions of these highly influential imports from Britain, Quackenbos synthesized the most prominent features of New Rhetoric, presenting them in decidedly practical terms. The result - the Advanced Course of Composition and Rhetoric (originally published in 1854) - was a rhetoric that approached the process of composition based on Campbell's college psychology and, in doing so, treated the process of invention as composed primarily of selection and "careful, deliberate, and concentrated thought."

Quackenbos was among the first composition textbook authors to attenuate the selection process by providing lists of subjects (topics) for composition. Quackenbos' notion of "thought" most clearly demonstrates the epistemology of New Rhetoric by the way it appears to be only a filter for the phenomenon: "This is an analysis of the subject, or a drawing of the various heads that suggest themselves to the mind as appropriate to the subject of the discourse." Quackenbos signaled the practical nature of his book by including an exhaustive section on grammar, a subject typically ignored in the more abstract treatises on rhetoric. At the same time, he nodded in the direction of Hugh Blair and the beletrist tradition by including lengthy discussions of taste, sublime, and prosody.

Some scholars have suggested that Quackenbos was the originator of the modes of discourse (description, narration, expositions, argumentation), while others maintain that this distinction belongs to Alexander Bain, Henry Day, or Samuel Newman. Regardless of who rightly deserves credit (or blame) for developing such an influential pedagogical approach, it seems fair to propose that Quackenbos was certainly one of the first to make modes an integral part of composition pedagogy (^{ENOS, 2011}, p. 579)²⁵.

Quackenbos' debt to Campbell's "psychology" and rhetoric is accepted by other scholars of the subject²⁶. George Campbell is one of the prominent names of the so-called Scottish Enlightenment which, although it spread, had few epicenters beyond Edinburgh and Aberdeen; an eighteenth-century movement, as occurred in other European countries, although Scotland, besides being isolated, was poor and crossed by political and religious conflicts, directly or indirectly arising from its relationship with England²⁷. Unlike what happened in other European countries, the Scottish Enlightenment was not anti-religious or particularly anti-Christian. The Scottish church led by clergymen like Campbell and Blair contributed significantly to the "enlightenment"²⁸ in that country; the two Presbyterians considered "moderates." Campbell was a very special spokesman for tolerance, for reason in the service of faith against the religious fanaticisms of both Catholics and Evangelicals. "All his sermons appeal to the common sense of the hearers, and avoid carefully any appeal whatever to superstition. or fanaticism" (^{McKAY, 1951}, p. 88)²⁹.

In 1776, Campbell first published a two-volume book, Philosophy of Rhetoric, which would become internationally known within and outside religious circles, and which would enshrine him (^{McKAY, 1951}). Campbell's writings, like Adam Smith, Lord Karnes and Hugh Blair, spread to Scotland, throughout England, "and helped to make rhetoric a leading branch of study in all the American colleges" (^{McCOSH, 1875}, p. 241).

In this work, besides discussing eloquence, rhetoric, and grammar, Campbell deepens his understanding of logical truth. He details the three levels of "intuitive evidence" - intellection, conscience and common sense - as well as the levels of "deductive evidence" and the "syllogism". It is the "intuitive" that is of interest here.

The "intellection," says Campbell, is evidence of propositions such as "one and four add up to five" (CAMPBELL, ¹⁸⁰⁸, p. 89). In fact, all the axioms of arithmetic and geometry fall under this rubric. A second kind arising from "consciousness," from which “every man derives the perfect assurance that he hath [sic] of his own existence” (^{CAMPBELL, 1808}, p. 92). And a third is "common sense," called "an original source of knowledge common to all mankind" (CAMPBELL, 1808, p. 95).

According to Campbell, the difference between these types of "intuitive truth" is great. While mathematical axioms and the guarantees of consciousness are so certain that:

[...] their negation implies a manifest contradiction, this is not true of the primary truths of the third order, common sense [...] "It must be recognized that holding propositions, the converse of the primary truths of common sense, do not imply a contradiction, they imply only insanity." (^{CAMPBELL, 1808}, p. 97)

The prominence given to "common sense" as a guarantee of the truths provided by reason and the universal scope, he attributes to it projected George Campbell as one of the leading members of the common-sense school of philosophy (^{STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, 2017}). To the universality of intuitive truths, Campbell counterposed grammatical rules: these are always particular. He was thus countering the Cartesian grammar of Port-Royal.

It is on intuitive truths, common sense in particular, that the speaker must build his rhetoric and win over his audience, whether by written or oral discourse.

The debt to rhetoric and the so-called "psychology" of George Campbell provided Quacknebos with the platform on which he erected his program of teaching rhetoric, composition, and grammar. It provided him with the substratum to translate into textbooks the operations for the proper everyday management of the English language, written and oral.

The available studies on his textbooks, especially the first ones of 1851 and 1854, provide convincing evidence of the innovative character that Quackenbos imprinted on his school and academic materials, in relation to his predecessors and American counterparts; more than that, Quackenbos greatly contributed to the creation of disciplines destined to the teaching of composition and rhetoric and, consequently, to the renewal of grammar teaching. In his wake, other authors and other textbooks emerged that reproduced his pattern, with greater or lesser updates.

Once we have identified Quackenbos' debt to Campbell, we still have the complex task of identifying the roots of his relationship with Pestalozzian pedagogy, especially with object lessons, the main means by which this pedagogy was present in American classrooms - including, especially, its artifacts.

In the first decades of the 19th century there are already references to Pestalozzian pedagogy. From the 1810s there are already study trips and internships in schools guided by this pedagogy, both in Switzerland, with Pestalozzi himself or his direct disciples, and in other countries, where schools affirmed the incorporation of his educational proposals and guidelines for the treatment of children.

The most typical American appropriation of Pestalozzi's pedagogy occurred in the mid-19th century, through what they called "object-lessons" or "object teaching".

The encounter of "object lessons" with the "new rhetoric" seems to have happened, in the case of Quackenbos, in the confection of Illustrated lessons… In the earlier booklets - on the subject, it must be stressed - there are no references to this system of work. At that time, Quackenbos was already competing in "America" with many publications that declared their adoption of the "object-lessons" that had become the great vogue in public elementary schools since the mid-1860s, when the unified nation was being built through the victory of the North over the South at the end of the Civil War. Thus, market-wise, Quackenbos needed to win over the public by declaring adherence to Pestalozzi and to that methodology considered the faithful translation of Pestalozzism. Quackenbos for the first time launched a textbook aimed exactly at young students, considered then as the captive clientele of the Pestalozzian pedagogy. The great proof of the adoption of teaching through things, through experience, was expressed through the incorporation of illustrations of scenes in the lessons. Quackenbos had not previously used them to teach grammar, rhetoric, or composition. It is not accidental, therefore, that the prominence in the book's title is given to the illustrations contained in the lessons gathered there.

It is also not negligible that, by this time, the initial books that ^{Quackenbos had released in 1851} and 1854 were already losing audience to new teaching proposals, particularly in rhetoric.

We must also consider the hypothesis, perhaps more central, that Quackenbos understood that the method of "object-lessons" contained the same philosophical substratum that he had glimpsed in the rhetoric he had learned from Blair and especially from Campbell: the call to experience, to immediate life, the appeal to the empirical Now, it was a matter of going to "things," not ideas; remembering that, like the latter, the former present themselves to the mind by means of words.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The opinion of Ruy Barbosa, elaborated from the perspective that legislation should function as the central instrument of sociocultural changes, is an important piece in the disputes around the teaching of Portuguese language in 19th century elementary school, defending the renewal of this teaching based on the "modern" pedagogical and linguistic principles disseminated in Brazil in the late 19th century.

By electing Grammatica analytica... as an example of the offenses committed in the teaching of the language and Illustrated lessons... as an antidote to renew this teaching based on the progress already tested in other places, Ruy Barbosa credits the intuitive method with the mission of effecting modernity in Education in Brazil, while denouncing and opposing the linguistic, pedagogical and administrative conservatism present in Primary and Secondary Education at the Court. Ruy Barbosa's analysis of these books exemplifies the obscurantism present in the schools of the Court at the end of the 19th century and indicates the path to be followed in the pedagogical renovation.

In this sense, the offense highlighted by Ruy Barbosa through Ortiz and Pardal's grammar, adopted by the Imperial Government in 1872 to replace Cyrillo Dilermando da Silveira's grammar, are reinforced precisely because the approval of that book did not represent any kind of renewal in the teaching that had been in place until then. On the contrary, contrary to the scientific renovation of Linguistics, of historical-comparative orientation, which was gaining strength in the second half of the 19th century, Grammatica analytica... kept itself grounded on the perspective of general and philosophical grammar of Greek-Latin model, founded on the "art" of teaching the virtues of speaking and writing well.

Added to this problem is that of grammar teaching in primary school. As Barbosa argues, since the 1860's the "scientific" study of language was applied in countries such as France and Germany only for the "last" classes. For the primary school, practical language study should be offered, leading the students to a "natural" knowledge of grammar. That is, a very different proposition from the one materialized in Ortiz de Pardal's grammar which already indicated, through its title, the intention of a descriptive and prescriptive grammar based on the definition and explanation of grammatical concepts and laws.

These aspects allow us to presume that the substitution of Dilermando da Silveira's grammar by Ortiz and Pardal's did not happen in the wake of any pedagogical debate or the need for changes in the teaching that had been going on until then in the schools of the Empire's capital. Very possibly, this change was due to the projection that Pardal enjoyed in the administration of the Court's Public Instruction and the positions he held there, among them that of member of the Board of Directors of the General Inspectorate of Primary and Secondary Instruction, which was responsible for reviewing all the books adopted in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, correcting them and, if necessary, replacing them with new ones.

Despite the criticism, Grammatica analytica... continued circulating for a while longer in the hands of adults and children; but apparently it was buried, before the last decade of the 19th century, by the propaganda in favor of the intuitive method and by the launching of new titles related to this method. But Ruy Barbosa's praise for the illustrated lessons of Quackenbos were not enough to put them into circulation in Brazilian school circles or to plant the author's name among the grammarians and grammar teachers of the late Empire; at least this is what the surveys carried out so far indicate. More extensive research may provide new clues, including the circulation of the name of Quackenbos as an innovator in the teaching of Arithmetic and the paths that would have led Ruy Barbosa to meet this American heir of the Scottish "enlightenment".